Almost everyone has that friend of a friend who made black bean brownies once and now swears they taste exactly like the real thing. But who is this person? And does she have the same discerning brownie palate that you do?

Or maybe you’ve seen an avocado brownie recipe on Pinterest and want to try it...but would rather not let perfectly good avocados go to waste on a dessert that could turn out to make you gag.

So how’s a girl to know if any of the healthy brownie recipes on the internet are actually worth making? Luckily, we conducted a better-for-you brownie blind taste test that pitted brownie recipes with secret healthy ingredients against each other—so you don't have to experience any #PinterestFails of your own.

The Healthy Brownie Contenders

Alyssa Zolna

We focused on three of the buzziest recipes that hide healthy ingredients behind chocolate and sugar: zucchini brownies, black bean brownies, and avocado brownies. We picked which exact recipes to bake by looking at some of the most-pinned options on Pinterest:

But here at Women’s Health, we believe in ~science~ and knew we needed a control. So naturally we went for the gold standard: Duncan Hines chewy fudge brownies mix.

Robin Hilmantel

And so the baking commenced.

‘It's Not Supposed To Smell That Way’

Robin Hilmantel

We split up the baking among two editors, and we both noticed pretty quickly that the process was a little...off. The first step in making black bean brownies, for example, involves putting an entire can of black beans in a food processor or blender, which smells, well, disgusting. When we blended in the eggs, vanilla, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sugar, and coconut oil, our kitchen started to smell a little better, but we still wouldn’t call it appetizing.

The other batters had their own issues: Although we chose pretty ripe avocados, we couldn’t get rid of the small green chunks in the sludge-like batter (the left image above), no matter how long we blended it. And the zucchini recipe (which you'll see on the right above) looked really dry and powdery for a long time, until the liquid from the grated zucchini finally absorbed into the rest of the ingredients after about 10 minutes. Plus, it was annoying AF to grate an entire zucchini—it took way longer than expected, and ended up being pretty messy.

The Baking Moment Of Truth

Robin Hilmantel

Of course, it didn’t help seeing these healthy stand-ins alongside the Duncan Hines batter, which smelled like heaven.

But a funny thing happened when the pans came out of the oven: All of the brownies ended up looking fairly normal (apart from a few visible avocado pieces). Check them out above.

The Taste Test

Robin Hilmantel

Because we wanted our results to be legit, the bakers didn’t reveal to anyone else participating which brownies were which...or that we had “regular” brownies on the table. We just set them all out and asked everyone to rank the brownies from best to worst in three categories: flavor, texture, and overall.

Immediately, we got some strong reactions, ranging from “this one tastes like wet sand” to “none of these are bad—I would take any of these to a party” to “I can definitely taste the healthy ingredient in this one.”

But after all of the rankings were tallied, there was a clear winner.

The Best Healthy Brownie

Jessie VanAmburg

The victor of the three healthy brownie recipes was...drumroll, please...the zucchini brownie. It wasn’t as rich and chocolatey as some brownies we’ve tasted in our vast brownie-eating experiences, but this recipe’s cake-like texture and thin layer of frosting that didn’t contain any hidden plant-based ingredients—just good ol’ cocoa powder, melted butter, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and salt—were definitely legit. So much so that one of our editors even ranked it above the Duncan Hines brownies.

Robin Hilmantel

Robin Hilmantel

That said, none of the brownies were universally panned.

While the zucchini brownie was the only one to get nearly-unanimous approval from our taste-testers, some people said they appreciated the fudgy texture of the avocado brownies (the people who didn’t have avocado bits in their brownies did, anyway—those who got chunky brownies weren’t as pleased).

Robin Hilmantel

And even though the black bean brownies smelled vile while we were making them, most of our tasters said there was only a hint of earthiness in the end result.

Robin Hilmantel

But...there is a catch here. Apart from that one person who voted for the zucchini brownie as her favorite, we all chose the Duncan Hines version as the best—even the people who didn’t know there was a “real” brownie in the mix.

Robin Hilmantel

See the above photo evidence, which shows that one of our guinea pigs devoured the entire Dunan Hines brownie...but left all of the other brownies unfinished on her official blind taste test napkin. Appetites don't lie.

To Duncan, Or Not To Duncan?

Robin Hilmantel

Granted, you probably wouldn’t be eating these healthy brownies alongside box-mix brownies, and we assume you’d enjoy them more without any point of comparison to bring them down. But we do want to take this opportunity to point out that, when you look into the nutrition stats, there wasn’t a huge difference—and, in fact, the Duncan Hines brownies have the fewest calories of any of the treats we tested. Although none of the food bloggers whose recipes we used published nutrition info on their brownies, we crunched the numbers and found the following nutrition stats for each brownie:

So if you want our two cents, we say people who are into baking should definitely try the zucchini brownie recipe (or the black bean brownie recipe if you don’t like cakey brownies—you're probably best off just skipping the avocado brownies unless you're really curious). But if not—or if you aren’t particularly into the idea of hiding veggies in your dessert—go ahead and indulge in the real thing. If you’re just eating one, there's not a big nutritional difference. Eat what you love!

Robin HilmantelDigital DirectorRobin Hilmantel is the digital director at Women's Health, where she oversees the editorial strategy for WomensHealthMag.com and its social platforms.

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